On May 19th Fur Affinity had announced that it will expand the rules toward banning portrayals of youthful appearing characters, even if the character is addressed as being older in universe, engaging in sexual situations to include digimon and pokemon characters. While situations that portrayed actual young anthro characters in sex (known colloquially as cub porn) had been banned 13 years ago, there were elements of gray area on characters that are determined as mature in age, but younger in appearance that were later expanded upon. This update is a furthering of that expansion.

In the announcement Fur Affinity had noted that there is a method for artists who have posted works that may be in this gray area to discover how they would be handled by submitting trouble tickets against it.

If you have questions as to whether this may apply to your content, please feel free to open a ticket under “NSFW Underage Content” with links to the content in question, and we can verify if the content is in violation or not.

Artists have been informed that the amendment will start to be enforced on July 1st.

In the core Pokémon video game series, most main entries begin with the player making a choice between three Pokémon, one each Grass, Fire and Water type, which becomes their first Pokémon. These Pokémon, known as "starter", and also their third and final "evolutions", are given unique prominence in the minds of players, mostly for sentimental reasons, as everybody remembers their first, and partially because these Pokémon are slightly stronger than average, especially during early game. They are also rare, as the beginning of the game is usually the only time they are available, outside of trading with other players or breeding duplicates (which the game makes harder for starters by making them predominantly male, when offspring species is determined by the female in a breeding pair).

Due to this prominence, the character designs for the starters and their final evolution are heavily scrutinized. In more recent generations of Pokémon, a common complaint has been a rise in bipedalism and "human like" designs for the characters, a complaint that resurfaced with the evolution of quadripedal Grass Cat Sprigatito into bipedal Meowscarada (bipedal cats seem to especially stir strong reactions, if the earlier reaction to Incineroar is any indication). Now, partially, this is all aesthetic preferences, and it all comes down to personal choice, but there does seem to be a strong "no furries" aspect to the complaining from some quadrants. Furries definitely seem to prefer the bipedal look, with Meowscarada showing up over 550 times on e621, while Quaqaval the duck is a distant second with just over 60, which is still double third place Skeledirge the quadrupedal crocodile with not even 30 pieces as of this writing. And there is reason to doubt this is a "recent" trend among Pokémon starters, as well.

No well-reviewed film adaptation of a video game has ever achieved a combined positive review score of 60%, the threshold needed to count as "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. Until now.

With 158 of 242 reviews from professional movie critics at least somewhat positive, the first live action Pokémon movie, Detective Pikachu, has managed to squeak into the "good" side of the Tomato-meter with a score of 65%. Its average critical rating is lower, at 5.97 out of 10 - not every critic assigns a movie rating. However, its Audience Rating is much higher at 83%! (Although the Audience Score is notoriously vulnerable to "review bombing", Detective Pikachu was never likely to be deliberately targeted.)

My first encounter with Pokémon was when I borrowed a friend's copy of Pokémon Red for the Gameboy. I chose squirtle as my starter pokémon and I remember lying awake, wanting my own copy of the game so badly that I could feel it. Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back hadn't been released yet, so this was in 1999 at the latest. For at least twenty years since then, Pokémon has been a part of my life.

Although I never did get a copy of the first Pokémon game, I did get Pokémon Silver, collected the trading cards, watched the anime, memorised the pokérap, saw the films and played many of the spin-off games. But Pokémon's influence was far broader than all that; it gave me a world of creatures and possibilities to imagine. I took to writing Pokémon fanfiction which, in turn, led me to the furry fandom. Pokémon has literally helped create the person I am today, so it was disappointing when I felt myself drifting away from it.

Like the Pokémon games, the Super Smash Bros. series has had many releases, adding a few bells and whistles as well as a handful of new characters every console generation or so. Also like the Pokémon games, the new releases have a solid enough base that they're still almost always worth checking out. And also also like the Pokémon games, the Super Smash Bros. series has Pokémon in it.

Detective Pikachu will be hitting theaters May 10 of next year. Hopefully, Pikachu talking goes down a little better with the fans this time.

Following on from my review of Monster Mind, I metaphorically sat down with Argon Vile to discuss the game. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and consistency. Let's jump straight into it!

Rakuen: In the credits, you say Monster Mind was pretty much just done by you, although you took various assets from others. How long did it take to put everything together and what kept you motivated through it all?

Argon Vile: Development of Monster Mind began in January 2016 and finished in April 2018. When I first started the project, I tried to strike a balance between working on the game and working on my art. But after six months, I realized the scope of what I was creating, how long it would take. I decided to fully focus on the game, but I was still dissatisfied with the amount of progress I was making. I eventually adopted a motivational technique Jerry Seinfeld popularized, which is to take a physical wall calendar (being physical is important) and set a daily goal for yourself. My goal was to work on my game for one hour. Every day that I worked on my game, I would put an X on the calendar for that day. And eventually I would accumulate a string of five or 10 Xs in a row, and it would feel good. And that was my goal; don't break the chain.

Monster Mind is a puzzle-solving, Pokémon-themed, Flash game created by Argon Vile. It's available to play for free through Inkbunny or Fur Affinity [Edit: Now on Itch.io in faster HTML5 and Windows versions.]

One might be tempted to immediately dismiss it as just another pornographic game, however not only is it very well-executed but it also contains deeper questions about sex and sexuality than you might expect.

A puzzling start

The main puzzles—as well as the title—are based on the board game Master Mind. In the classic version, you have to guess the colour and position of each peg in a row of four, usually with six colours to choose from for each slot. After each guess, you are told how many pegs have the correct colour and how many are in the correct position. Over multiple guesses, you can determine the correct pattern.

"Augmented reality" mobile game and worldwide phenomenon Pokémon Go was released to the public July 6, 2016, meaning the game has just passed its first year anniversary. To celebrate, the game has released versions of series mascot Pikachu wearing a hat based on anime protagonist Ash Ketchum's into the wild (Ash hat versions of pre-evolved Pichu and evolution Raichu are also available).

The anniversary event featuring the hat-bedecked Pikachus is expected to run through July 24, and also features an "Anniversary Box" in the game shop, which six Incubators (allowing players to hatch eggs), six Max Revives (items that heal Pokémon "fainted" during the Gym battle portion of the game), 20 Ultra Balls (needed to capture Pokémon) and two Raid Passes (allowing players to participate in Raids). The box is 1200 Pokécoins (currency that can be bought for real money or earned by battling at gyms).

The final days of the event coincide with the first days of Pokemon Go Fest, an event scheduled to be held in Chicago, Illinois, USA's Grant Park starting July 22. According to the event website, attendance is already sold out.

At the time of release, the game, which allowed players to track down and capture Pokémon "in real life" using smart phones, was a major hit, though opinions were divided as to whether it was the best thing (outside of Zootopia) to happen in 2016 or just another strike against the year. At one point, U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton encouraged voters to "Pokémon Go to the polls"; she was not elected president. Players searching for elusive Pokémon managed to stumble across bodies so frequently that articles were written assuring people stumbling across dead bodies is normal.

Despite all this, Nintendo and Niantic have claimed over 750 million downloads of the game, with over 250 billion Pokémon caught, all over the world.

Photo credit Huskyteer via Twitter.

Nintendo has released a trailer for the previously announced Pokémon Sun and Moon pair of games, the latest generation of Pokémon games. The games are set for a November release, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the franchise. The trailer, like the one for last generation (X and Y), features the three new "starter"; a Grass-type owl, a Fire-type cat and a Water-type seal. The trailer also includes two as yet unnamed legendary Pokémon that, perhaps disappointingly, aren't winged unicorns.

Of the three new Pokémon, Litten, the fire type cat, seems to be the most popular with furries so far; it's already racked up 67 tagged pieces on e621.net (NSFW, so you can do your own research to verify), compared to Rowlet's 25 and Popplio's 24.

The Pokémon franchise has been around for a long time. After two decades of tackling many genres, the concept of Pokémon battling arrives, for the first time, in one to which it seems particularly well-suited: the fighter.

Pokkén Tournament allows you to take full control of 16 different Pokémon in live action combat against your opponent. The game was developed by those experienced in the development of fighter games, and are known for the creation of Tekken. But even with this expertise behind the scenes, can the game rise to the challenge and leave a mark within the niche fighter market?

Last April, web animation series Death Battle's spin-off series One Minute Melee featured as combatants Digimon Renamon and Pokémon Lucario. However, that battle could be considered an under-card fight in the Battle of the Mons, as the main series has now featured Agumon and partner Tai for team Digimon versus Charizard and trainer Red for team Pokémon.

NSFW Warning: Violence with blood in embedded video.